1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an apparatus and method for preventing multimedia message retrieval in a mobile communication system, and more particularly, to an apparatus and method for preventing a mobile communication terminal from retrieving a multimedia message after an expiration time.
2. Description of the Related Art
A multimedia message service (hereinafter, referred to as an MMS) refers to a message service for not only text messages but also high-quality multimedia messages.
In general, when a transmission terminal is set to transmit a message using the MMS, an expiration time of the message is determined, and then the message is transmitted to a multimedia message service center (hereinafter, referred to as an MMSC). Thereafter, the MMSC transmits an MMS notification message to a reception terminal before sending the multimedia message to the reception terminal, thereby notifying the reception terminal of the arrival of the multimedia message. Then, if the expiration time elapses, the MMSC discards the multimedia message. Thus, a user of the reception terminal may needlessly perform an MMS retrieval process to receive the multimedia message, without noticing that the multimedia message has been discarded.
As described above, in the conventional mobile communication system, the reception terminal is not notified of the fact that the multimedia message has been discarded after the expiration time, and thus may make an unnecessary call for retrieving the discarded multimedia message. Hence, the unnecessary call may disadvantageously create an additional cost.